Travel is a tool for validation, a way to say "I see you, I hear you, and your story matters."
Today's guest, Muna Haddad, has built her long career in tourism around this principle.
Muna is a powerful maker of change in the world of travel.
She is the founder of Baraka Destinations, an organization creating tourism experiences in Jordan’s secondary, forgotten locations that center local narratives and give power back to where it belongs: local communities.
Muna spent nearly two decades working in sustainable tourism.
She founded the Jordan Trail Association, which promotes the 400-mile hiking trail that runs across the country, and helped create the Meaningful Travel Map of Jordan.
This season, we want to hear from you!
Send us a short note with your name, where you’re calling in from, and an answer to two questions:
- What gives YOU hope in this moment in time
- Which place you are going to next
We’ll run your answers at the end of the season in our Community Voices episode.
To participate, fill out this short form OR send a short audio clip (a phone voice recording is just fine!) to hello@goingplacesmedia.com by Monday, April 27.
Listen to the Episode
What you’ll hear:
- How a trip to Cambodia led Muna down this path
- Asking 'who benefits?' and 'who gets to tell the story of a place?'
- How Baraka's work transformed the village of Umm Qais in northern Jordan
- Why the model Muna started is a revolution needed everywhere in travel
- Words matter: the colonial legacy of 'Middle East' and 'Levant'
- Unpacking Orientalism
A New Walking Tour of Amman
Telling the story the city wants to tell
Eight months of research.
192 pages of documents.
Forty hours of interviews with former prime ministers, members of the Royal Family, artists, architects, elders, migrants, historians, third-generation coffee roasters, former mayors of Amman, and anthropologists...
That's the level of detail and intention that went into the new walking tour of Amman just launched by Baraka Destinations.
When designing the tour, Muna and her team asked, "What are the stories you need to hear to understand Jordan, to understand Amman?"
The result is the four-hour walking tour now available for bookings.
Check out our interview on YouTube →
• Follow Muna on Instagram: @munahaddad
• Follow Baraka on Instagram: @barakadestinations
• Learn more about Baraka Destinations
• Check out the newly-launched Amman City Tour
• Read about Muna in the 2026 Power List by Condé Nast Traveler
• Learn more about Edward Said and his seminal work, Orientalism
• Send in your message for our Community Voices episode
"I know exactly what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. I'm here to tell stories of unheard people and unseen places, and shed a spotlight on them through travel." – Muna Haddad
Radostina Boseva is our Founding Member
Radostina Boseva is a film wedding photographer with an editorial flair based in San Francisco.
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